Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Border Militiamen Complicate an Already Volatile Situation Along the Border

Border militiamen like to tell the public that they offer a simple
solution to a complex problem – putting “boots on the ground” along the
United States’ border with Mexico as a way to deter would-be immigrants
from making illegal crossings, or as they are more inclined to put it,
“stopping the illegal invasion of America.”

But already, federal agents have found that their unsought presence
in recent weeks on the border in Texas and Arizona is making a difficult
job much more complicated and possibly lethal. In some cases, agents
are drawing down on the border vigilantes, and in one incident actually
fired upon them. Another confrontation involved bat scientists who
happened to be gathering field data when they encountered the armed
militiamen.

A recent Associated Press report from Christopher Sherman
described an incident along the Rio Grande involving an outfit calling
itself the Texas Militia, who showed up unbidden at the midnight arrest
of a group of border crossers in a canal near the Texas river. At first,
the story reported, the Border Patrol officers assumed the men were
part of a state-run tactical squad, but then were stunned to find that
these well-armed men had “no law-enforcement training or authority of
any kind.”

“The situation ended peacefully with the immigrants getting arrested
and the Border Patrol advising the militia members ‘to properly and
promptly’ identify themselves anytime they encounter law-enforcement
officers,” the story reported. “But the episode was unsettling enough
for the Border Patrol to circulate an ‘issue paper’ warning other
agents.”

Indeed, the story appeared only two days after another border-militia outfit calling itself “Camp Lonestar” posted a video on YouTube
showing a group of border crossers swimming the Rio Grande, while the
self-described member of the “citizen militia” shooting the video
verbally harassed them and told them to go back to Mexico and cross
legally. The crossers appeared to be two men and a woman, and the
militiaman described the men as “coyotes” – human smuggling operators.

Last Friday in a wooded area near the border outside of Brownsville, a
Border Patrol agent in pursuit of a group of fugitive immigrants fired four shots at a camo-clad militiaman who happened to appear in the vicinity. The man dropped his gun and identified himself as a militia member to the border agent.An incident on the Arizona border
near Sonoita, in rural Santa Cruz County, last week was even more
chilling. A group of scientists conducting counts of the bats occupying
Onyx Cave was hit with a spotlight as they walked back to their vehicles
in the dark, then shouted at in Spanish by men who identified
themselves as militia members out “protecting the border.” After
identifying themselves, the scientists walked back to their campsite and
met the apologetic militiamen in person.

While the presence of border militias – which initially stumbled when they were announced last month, but have finally picked up steam in recent weeks,
with as many as 13 different units reportedly operating on the border
in Texas now – is ostensibly about making the border more secure, the
presence of untrained, utterly anonymous gunmen with no accountability
to anyone has been an increasing concern for law-enforcement
professionals working the border.

Last month, officials at Customs and Border Protection issued a statement
intended to warn the militias away: “Customs and Border Protection does
not endorse or support any private group or organization from taking
matters into their own hands as it could have disastrous, personal and
public safety consequence,” the statement said.

“CBP appreciates the efforts of concerned citizens as they act as our
eyes and ears. Securing our nation’s borders can be dangerous.
Interdicting narcotics and deterring and apprehending individuals
illegally entering the U.S. requires highly trained law enforcement
personnel,” the statement said.
Right-wing radio host Pete Santilli spent time, while on his trip to
Texas as part of the failed “Border Convoy”, with one of these border
militias – namely, the participants at “Camp Lonestar.” Santilli took
footage of the patrols of the border these vigilantes made in their
vehicles.

The man claiming to run this militia is an Arizona man named Joe O’Shaughnessy, who Santilli had profiled on YouTube in an extended interview
a few weeks previously. O’Shaughnessy said he and several others moved
their border-watching operations to Texas in recent weeks as the call
went up among his fellow antigovernment “Patriot” movement believers to
try to stop the flow of refugee children over the Texas border.

O’Shaughnessy and several of his fellow “Camp Lonestar” participants
described their activities to Santilli, and described their motivations
for prowling the desert borderlands.

Most of these motives revolved around “patriotic” duty to defend the
homeland, and a belief that the nation is being “invaded” by an “enemy.”
Some cited the supposed presence of Middle Eastern border crossers,
while others described at length the various foul diseases being
transported into the United States by the child refugees.

Notably, most of them claimed that the Border Patrol officers they
encountered actually welcomed their presence as “another set of eyes on
the border.”

Other militiamen have made similar claims in other news accounts. In a piece by Maxwell Barna for Vice,
a militiaman named Parris Frazier – the self-described leader of a
border unit called Whiskey Bravo, which patrols a stretch of the border
in Arizona – claimed that his men are friendly with Border Patrol
agents.

“Every day when I’m driving to and from Sierra Vista down here to
where I’m at, I get stopped, I shake their hands, and we talk, but we
don’t really talk about what’s going on,” Frazier said, speaking from an
area east of Nogales, roughly a half mile inside the Arizona border.
“Every now and then I’ll ask a question and they’ll give me a nod yes or
no.”

However, CBP officially maintains that heavily armed wannabe border
patrolmen are not particularly welcome in sensitive areas where they are
encountering dangerous situations on a daily basis.

And local law enforcement are apparently inclined to agree. According to the Los Angeles Times,
when a border militia recently camped out near an international bridge
to Mexico in Pharr, Texas, local sheriffs marked their presence by
circulating a bulletin among each other warning of the men’s presence.
Some sheriffs directly declined the militia’s help, while others simply
remained silent.

“How do they identify themselves? Do they have badges? How do we know who they are?” asked J.P. Rodriguez,
a spokesman for the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office. “If they’re all
just dressed in camos, it’s kind of hard to distinguish whether they’re
law enforcement or not. … There’s a lot of potential for stuff to go
wrong.”

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.